Denaturant

Denaturants are substances that are added to cosmetics mainly to ethyl alcohol to make it unsuitable for oral consumption. In formulas, they do not work as an asset for skin or hair care, but primarily perform a technological and regulatory task: they allow alcohol to be used as a solvent, antiseptic base, or component that accelerates the drying of the product. Therefore, such substances are more common in lotions, sprays, deodorants, styling products and perfumes, where a light texture, rapid evaporation and a feeling of "dry" finish are important. The FDA explicitly states that cosmetic ethyl alcohol can be denatured, that is, made non-potable, and the designation Alcohol Denat. It is used as an internationally agreed name for denatured alcohol. (fda.gov)

Such components affect the properties of skin and hair mainly indirectly — through the behavior of the entire formula. If there is a lot of alcohol in the product, the product is distributed faster, feels easier on the skin, dries faster and can temporarily enhance the feeling of freshness; at the same time, for sensitive or dry skin, this sometimes increases the risk of dryness and tightness. For hair, alcohol formulations help speed up the drying of styling products and reduce stickiness. Typical examples of ingredients with this function are Denatonium Benzoate and Diethyl Phthalate. Denatonium benzoate is known as a very bitter substance and is used specifically as an additive to prevent accidental ingestion; this is confirmed by PubChem data. Diethyl phthalate has also been described by European experts as a possible denaturing component for alcohol in cosmetic formulas. (pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)